Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XI, Arms Control and Disarmament

252. Record of Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Committee of Principals¹

Washington, July 8, 1968, 5 p.m.

PARTICIPANTS

• See Attached List²

REFERENCE

• Memorandum for the Executive Committee of the Committee of Principals from the Acting Director H. Scoville, Jr., dated July 4, 1968, Subject: Strategic Missile Talks (C)-ACDA-2935 and ACDA-2936³

SUMMARY OF ACTIONS

1. A Working Group, composed of senior representatives of each of the agencies represented on the Executive Committee and chaired by Mr. Fisher, ACDA, was established to develop positions and issues for consideration of the Executive Committee.

2. The Department of Defense was asked to draft a substantive opening statement which could be considered by the Working Group along with the draft opening statement already distributed to the Executive Committee.

3. In drafting the opening statement, consideration should be given to the possibility of consulting on the completed statement with Congress, but no consideration should be given to release to the press. In the meantime, answers to Congressional queries should be limited to statements that no date and place have yet been selected and that we are studying the substantive problems involved.

4. The Committee endorsed the USIB action to prepare an updated SNIE on U.S. capabilities to verify various strategic arms control measures.

Secretary Rusk opened the meeting by pointing out that the President had worked hard over a period of eighteen months to get the Soviets to agree to discussions on controlling the strategic arms race. He was concerned that the race would spiral to new plateaus with even greater expenditures without any increase in security. All agreed that the problems were very complex and that the difficulties of achieving a successful agreement should not be underestimated. However, it was the job of the Committee to translate this general policy into specific proposals for controlling the arms race. We had no indications from the Soviets as to the time and place, but they had urged the discussions be held in the nearest future. He pointed out that Mr. Foster would be returning to Geneva on Thursday,⁴ but he need not get into this question in his discussions with Roshchin.

He believed that the Government needed some special machinery to develop the U.S. position for these discussions and the present Executive Committee of Principals was established for this purpose. He also circulated an organizational paper, which had been previously coordinated informally.⁵ This paper established an inter-agency working group under the Chairmanship of Mr. Fisher, ACDA, to develop U.S. positions and issues for consideration by the Executive Committee.

He stated that he had studied the draft Opening Statement (See Reference) and had no particular problems with it although he would welcome a few word changes. For example, he believed the term, “unacceptable damage,” might be altered.

Secretary Clifford said he had studied the State-ACDA draft opening statement and position paper together with the analysis of the position paper that had been prepared in the Department of Defense. He thought these were useful first efforts but that it was too early to proceed further with substantive positions, as in the draft opening statement. He believed that the discussion should start on a very general plane without any concrete proposals or U.S. concessions, since the Soviets would take these as agreed to begin with and move on to obtain further concessions. He thought the first sessions would be primarily administrative in nature in which we would have an opportunity to test the sincerity of Soviet intentions. He thought it was important to determine what the Soviets wished to accomplish as a result of these discussions.

He considered verification to be the most important problem since he was worried about the Soviet attitude in this area. He wished to test them out and was not sure that we should depend on unilateral verification except as a fall-back. The discussions should be approached very carefully to assure that national security would not be jeopardized. He was reluctant to start with the position which should be reserved until the generalities had been thoroughly discussed.

Deputy Secretary Nitze emphasized that we must understand all the facts on any positions before they are adopted. For example, the proposal to freeze land-based ICBMs was, in fact, a freezing of the launch holes. Since the Soviet holes are larger than the U.S. holes, they could exploit these to Soviet advantage. He thought that even though the verification might be difficult, throw weight might be a better criteria for control than launchers. One must assume that in time the U.S. would lose its technological advantage. It was important that we obtain fact sheets on each issue as had been done with the test ban.

General Wheeler also emphasized the importance of the verification problem. He thought we should determine what are the critical parameters in missile capabilities and agreed that throw weight was important. He recommended that the Working Group list each issue which would become the subject of a separate paper since lumping all issues together often confused them.

Secretary Rusk pointed out that the draft opening statement was intended to be the first substantive presentation, since the administrative arrangements could be handled without difficulty. Since the U.S. had been pressing the Soviets for talks for eighteen months, it was logical for them to expect us to state what we had in mind early in the negotiations. He expected some sparring, and we might get some very unrealistic suggestions related to complete disarmament or the Gromyko Proposal. He agreed that any U.S. proposals must be in the security interests, but he did not feel we would be moving into the area of insecurity by the talks. Rather, a failure to control the arms race would decrease security. He was not sure what the Soviets wanted out of the discussions; at best, they might have reached that conclusion that a new plateau with great expenditures without changing the net security situation should be avoided. In the worst case, they might hope that these talks would be demonstrations to the non-nuclear countries of their desire to halt the arms race but have no hope of agreement. They might make far-reaching proposals which might be attractive to the non-nuclear countries and would cause U.S. propaganda difficulties. Obviously, both sides would be seeking advantages from the talks.

Deputy Secretary Nitze stated that hopefully we might find a position in which both sides gain, but the difficulty would be that each side hoped to make relative gains.

Deputy Under Secretary Bohlen believed that there was undoubtedly opposition in the Soviet Union to the talks, but they may have been worried about increasing expenditures for new strategic systems. The Soviets may also have been motivated to counteract the U.S. offer for talks to improve their image in the context of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He was struck by the association of these talks to the Kosygin Nine Points for the ENDC which had many of the standard arms control proposals;⁶ although the Soviets had agreed to bilateral discussions, he doubted Mr. Foster could have private discussions in Geneva without informing the other members of the ENDC. Mr. Foster indicated that it would be possible to have private talks in Geneva; all the other nations had plenty of experience with U.S.-Soviet private discussions at the ENDC and would undoubtedly take it in their stride. Secretary Rusk tended to agree.

Under Secretary Bohlen felt that we might consider attempting to get the Soviets to agree to inspections. While they had always been adamant against these, the Soviet requirements for secrecy no longer made sense and their attitudes might be different now. Secretary Rusk agreed that verification was a key problem since we must have confidence that any agreement would not adversely affect our security.

Mr. Helms stated that USIB was in the process of updating SNIE 11-10-67⁷ at General Wheeler’s request and hoped to consider it by July 18. He did not believe that the conclusions would change, but it would be useful to make sure that it was still current. He urged that in developing U.S. position papers, all groups use common intelligence estimates in order to avoid unnecessary discrepancies in the studies and indicated that Mr. Bruce Clarke, CIA, would be the central point for providing such information.

Mr. Foster indicated that studies on methods of controlling the strategic arms race had been going on for seven years; that we had accumulated large amounts of information which would provide a good basis for developing the U.S. positions and support for the discussions. He pointed out that we have already told the Soviets, with the President’s approval, that the U.S. was prepared to consider using unilateral sources insofar as possible to verify any agreement and that it would be hard to backtrack from this position. Secretary Rusk indicated that unilateral information might be satisfactory for limiting the strategic arms race, but might not be for reductions. He indicated that if the verification problems could be solved, he might be in favor of the Baruch Plan since he thought it would be desirable to scrap all nuclear weapons.

Mr. Foster suggested that one might agree on the basic principles to be accomplished in controlling the arms race before one got down to specifics. Secretary Rusk indicated that we need something like the draft opening statement which dealt with the substance and suggested that Department of Defense representatives try their hand at another draft. How it was actually used might depend on how the discussions develop. He thought Secretary Clifford should act as if he were the chief negotiator in Moscow and the Soviets asked him what he was proposing. Secretary Clifford indicated that Department of Defense would undertake such a draft which could be forwarded to the Working Group for consideration along with the present draft.

Chairman Seaborg said he had only a limited time to study the papers but they left no doubt on the principles involved. He understood that the proposals did not include the controls on the development of the front end technology and particularly nuclear warheads.

Secretary Rusk suggested that the Soviets might bring up the question of MIRVs immediately. Chairman Seaborg said he still had a job to do, such as warheads for Spartan. He agreed that we should have a substantive position for initiating the talks, but that perhaps we might hold back on the unilateral verification. Deputy Under Secretary Bohlen thought we should initially hold back on national systems and that the statements on Page 5 of the draft opening statement went too far. Mr. Fisher referred to the presentation (State 158191, March 18, 1967) made to Mr. Kosygin by Ambassador Thompson on March 28, 1967,⁸ which was essentially identical with that in the opening statement. Secretary Rusk indicated that we should rely on national means for what they were capable of verifying. He was pleased that USIB was updating the SNIE. For items which could not be adequately verified by national means, we would have to negotiate other verification arrangements.

In summary, Secretary Rusk directed the Working Group to start immediately developing a position with the necessary back-up studies. Secretary Clifford indicated that Mr. Warnke would head the Department of Defense working team and be their representative on the working group. Secretary Rusk asked the Department of Defense to draft another opening statement to be considered by the working group along with the present one.

Mr. Fisher asked guidance on the Congressional consultation. He suggested that for the present we should say that no time or place had been agreed upon and that we are still studying the nature of the U.S. position. Secretary Rusk hoped that the dates would not be announced for the next few days until the NPT was out of the way. One should consider in drafting the opening statement the possibility of consulting with the Congress on it, but he did not believe it would be desirable to make this statement available to the press since the subject was much too complicated at this stage. He stated he had seen too many occasions where we allowed details to block major U.S. policy objectives. He cursed the day when the Baruch proposal was turned down.

1. Source: Johnson Library, Clifford Papers, Talks on Reduction of Strategic Nuclear Weapons, Box 17-18. Secret. No drafting information appears on the source text. The meeting was held in the Secretary of State’s Conference Room. Another record of this meeting is in Seaborg, Journal, Vol. 17, pp. 18, and 24-25.
2. Not printed.
3. Not printed. (Johnson Library, National Security File, Rostow Files, Strategic Missile Talks, Box 11) The two ACDA papers attached to Scoville’s memorandum are entitled respectively: “Strategic Missile Talks: Basic Position Paper,” and “Strategic Missile Talks: US Opening Statement.” Both are undated.
4. July 11.
5. Reference apparently is to an unsigned procedural memorandum, July 8, which described the creation of a special interagency committee, with ACDA as chair, to prepare for the upcoming talks with the Soviet Union on the limitation and reduction of offensive and defensive strategic missile systems. The procedural memorandum included Secretary Rusk’s request that it should be circulated to all officers and agencies concerned with these discussions. (Department of State, Central Files, DEF 18)
6. Reference presumably is to the nine-part Soviet memorandum (A/7134), July 1, 1968, on further measures to stop the arms race; text in Documents on Disarmament, 1968, pp. 466-470.
7. See footnote 5, Document 253.
8. See Document 192. Ambassador Thompson’s presentation on March 28, 1967, has not been further identified.